


Butterflies

by pinkoptics



Series: Genoshan Husbands [2]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Erik Has Feelings, Erik is a Sweetheart, Genosha, Genoshan Husbands, M/M, Smitten Erik, X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019), soft erik, that should be a new fandom tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 09:31:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20872007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkoptics/pseuds/pinkoptics
Summary: Erik is only blocks away from the cafe in Paris, butterflies in his stomach, as he contemplates what he is about to do.





	Butterflies

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, soft Erik. Introspective Erik. Erik in love. Erik with hope in his heart for the first time... ever?

There were butterflies in his stomach. 

It was... odd. He stared curiously down at his own body, noting - almost clinically - the way his insides were turning ever so slightly and how his chest felt just a bit tight, making his breath shallow. These were not sensations Erik was accustomed to, though he recognized them from long ago, never quite faded memories. After all this time, what could possibly provoke anxiousness or nervousness in him given the horrors he had witnessed and been subject to in his childhood? In the decades since?

The answer to this was, apparently, Charles.

But then, hadn’t Charles always been the exception to everything from the very beginning?

The most significant exception of which was what he felt in his heart, an organ that should have withered and died the moment Shaw and the Nazi’s had entered his life and murdered the only people whom he had ever loved. However, to deny that he had loved Charles from the moment Charles had wrapped his arms around him in the ocean, and every day since, would have been to lie to himself. That love had taken many forms over the years, and had been complicated by other emotions, by the opposite paths for mutant justice they had taken, by decisions both good and bad they had made along the way. One thing, though, was constant.

That love had never taken first place.

This thought prompted other emotions he rarely felt to curl in his gut - guilt, regret. Like anxiety, these were emotions he did not have any time for. He had lived his life decisively and what was done was done. They had both made their mistakes and Erik, arguably, a good deal more of them. Where had putting their ideals, their beliefs, their agendas, before everything else gotten them in the end? Prison? Addicted to drugs? Living life in hiding? Surrounded by death? Rejected by everyone and everything they held dear? That was not to say there were not successes - a thriving school, a thriving community - but so much time had been wasted - years fighting one another, years at odds - to have a precious few of them back. What could they have achieved? Together?

So proud. So foolish.

Erik had lived too long now to be so foolish, to worry about his pride. He didn’t have an agenda now, not really. His last ‘stand’ had been carving out a peaceful life for himself, and any other mutant who wished it, in Genosha. After everything, it was the most he could muster— fighting the good fight was a younger man’s game and young he was not. In some ways, he had been just as naieve as he had often accused Charles of being, thinking he could take the fight to the humans and win. Genosha was the only ‘battle’ he could say he had ever truly won. His younger self would have been appalled, but it wasn’t a hollow victory, he was proud of what he’d accomplished. It was, however, a lonely one.

His grip on the portable chess set faltered as he walked toward the cafe he had learned Charles had been taking his coffee each morning. He gripped it harder, trying to stay the tremble in his hand.

Genosha was a compromise, for him, and he hoped it could be for Charles too.

He had no way, however, of knowing how Charles would react. To say their relationship had baggage was the most laughable of understatements. That Charles deigned to still speak to him at all anymore spoke either to his infinite capacity for forgiveness or a ludicrous masochistic streak. After the train and the aftermath, they had parted, cordially, but cordial was a far cry away from Charles agreeing to come to Genosha, to live in Genosha, to start a new life— with him.

But... he was tired.

Tired of being without Charles.

Tired of looking around the humble house he had cobbled together in Genosha and wanting to share it. Wanting to give. For the first time wanting to _give_.

He had something to offer. Something other than pain, than opposition, than a foil. It was far far less than Charles deserved. There was no way he could ever give Charles what he deserved, but he had this, he could offer this, he could offer a home. The one they should have had decades ago, together.

The first moment he’d felt pride in what they were building in Genosha, his immediate urge had been to tell Charles. Maybe I can be the man you thought I could be so long ago. The man you looked at with such naked love and admiration in your eyes. Perhaps he could offer something other than the hurt, pain, anger and disappointment that had followed. Charles’ looks had then cut deeper than any of Shaw’s instruments ever had. How would Charles look at him now? Showing up here in Paris with a chess piece that wasn’t really a chess piece? Charles was far too intelligent not to see it for what it truly was, what it truly meant, what he truly wanted and was ready for with the man he had loved deeply and irrevocably for thirty years.

Would Charles see how ready he was? Would he be capable of believing that it was finally possible they wanted the same thing? Or, would he take one look at Erik and see nothing but Magneto.

Erik sucked in an unsteady breath.

Charles would accept or he wouldn’t. The only way to guarantee refusal was never to ask at all.

Erik paused, needing to stay his trembling hands once more. He was a block away now, emotion threatening to swamp him and he had not even set eyes on Charles yet. He wanted to lay himself bare in front of Charles, to give everything to his beloved, to hide nothing, not anymore. But this was not the moment for that. He did not want to scare Charles off with the intensity of everything he was feeling. Long ago he had mastered boxing his feelings away, but this time, he hoped, not for good.

Instead, he held a few images in his mind. The low shelving in his home. The ramp to access the front door. The pathways that had been lain down between buildings...

Those images encapsulated all of his hopes, but from the box he let out only a small flicker of it. Just enough hope for Charles to feel if he so chose, but not so much that he would be immediately crushed if Charles took one look at the chess piece and laughed bitterly.

Erik tightened his grip on the set one last time and took a step forward. Then another after that, setting himself on the path he hoped to walk for the rest of his life.

To Charles. With Charles.

Forever.


End file.
